“Forever!” he repeated slowly, with low, remorseless music.
Hope Wayne trembled, but he did not see it.
“I am sorry, too,” she said, in a hurried whisper, as she moved slowly toward Mrs. Simcoe. Abel Newt was disappointed.
“Good-by forever, Miss Wayne!” he said. He could not see Hope’s paler face as she heard the more formal address, and knew by it that he was offended.
“Good-by!” was all he caught as Hope Wayne took Mrs. Simcoe’s arm and walked away.
CHAPTER XIII. — SOCIETY.
Tradition declares that the family of Newt has been uniformly respectable but honest—so respectable, indeed, that Mr. Boniface Newt, the father of Abel, a celebrated New York merchant and a Tammany Sachem, had a crest. He had even buttons for his coachman’s coat with a stag’s head engraved upon them. The same device was upon his sealring. It appeared upon his carriage door. It figured on the edges of his dinner-service. It was worked into the ground glass of the door that led from his dining-room to the back stairs. He had his paper stamped with it; and a great many of his neighbors, thinking it a neat and becoming ornament, imitated him in its generous use.
Mrs. Newt’s family had a crest also. She was a Magot—another of the fine old families which came to this country at the earliest possible period. The Magots, however, had no buttons upon their coachman’s coat; one reason of which omission was, perhaps, that they had no coachman. But when the ladies of the Magot family went visiting or shopping they hired a carriage, and insisted that the driver should brush his hat and black his boots; so that it was not every body who knew that it was a livery equipage.